A Push service is a kind of service of “pushing” information to a subscriber, initiated by a server on its own initiative. A system for implementing a Push service includes three entities: a Push Initiator (PI), a Push Proxy Gateway (PPG) and a Push receiver. Among them, the PI is used to send Push content to the PPG, Push instructions being contained in the Push content; the PPG is used to deliver the content to the Push Receiver according to the Push instructions. As shown in FIG. 1, taking example for WAP Push, the PI is located within the Internet and communicates with the PPG using a Push Access Protocol (PAP); the PPG is an access point between the Internet and a mobile network, which pushes messages to the Push receiver, i.e. the mobile station, using a Push OTA (Over-The-Air) protocol.
The flow of implementing a Push service can be described as follows.
A. The PI pushes a message to the PPG: when the PI detecting there is a message needs to be pushed to the mobile station, the PI first constructing a Push message according to the content and nature of the message, and sending a Push request to the PPG using the PAP.
B. The PPG processes the Push message: after receiving the request, the PPG performing some necessary processing including compression, protocol conversion, security authentication and so on, and then transferring the Push message to the mobile station using the OTA protocol.
C. The mobile station processes the received Push Message.
When a Push message is to be carried by a short message, for example, when the Push content is to be transferred by a Service Indication (SI), Service Loading (SL) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) notify message, after the Push content has been encoded into a binary code stream in the PPG module of Wireless Application Protocol Gateway (WAP GW), if the total data volume exceeds 140 bytes, it will be spilt into multiple short messages so as to be delivered to the mobile phone. These multiple short messages are scheduled in the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) as common short messages without any relationship thereamong, and at this point, if any one of these multiple short messages is delivered unsuccessfully, the SMSC will schedule and send it over again. Therefore, when these multiple short messages arrive at the mobile station, it is possible that the mobile station can not normally recombine these multiple short messages because of a long time interval, and the transmission of the Push content is thus unsuccessful.
An example of the Push content is an MMS m-notification-ind message. After the MMS m-notification-ind message has been encoded in the PPG, two short messages are needed to carry it, and abnormal delivery of either of the short messages will result in failure in sending of the MMS m-notification-ind message.
In the related art, a Push service is implemented by making use of an SMSC shared with other services to bear a WAP Push message. The flow thereof is shown in FIG. 2.
A1. The Push Initiator (PI)/Multimedia Message Service Center (MMSC) submits a Push message to the PPG.
B1. The PPG returns a response to the Push message.
C1. The PPG resolves the PAP and analyzes the Push message. Because the data volume of a Push message is more than 140 bytes, the PPG segments the Push message, i.e. divides one Push message into multiple short messages and submits them to the SMSC.
D1. The SMSC receives the multiple messages and returns a Submission Response Message to the PPG for each message; the SMSC performs message scheduling for the received messages in a store and forward mode.
E1. The SMSC detects each of the messages, and performs timeout and resend according to a predetermined strategy, i.e. if one of the messages is sent unsuccessfully, the SMSC resends this message according to a resending mechanism; and after the sending has been finished, the SMSC makes and feedbacks a Status Report Message to the PPG.
F1. After receiving the multiple messages, the mobile station recombines them because they belong to one and the same Push message.
The technical solution of implementing Push service by making use of an SMSC shared with other services to bear a WAP Push message may have one or more than one of the following disadvantages.
1. Since it is required to make use of an SMSC shared with other services to bear a WAP Push short message, the SMSC undertakes tasks of transmitting all the short messages, such as a point-to-point short message, a Monternet short message, a WAP Push short message and so on; the SMSC does not distinguish among all the short messages, but performs scheduling in terms of one short message. When the whole network system is relatively busy, once any network element of the wireless network, the No. 7 signaling network is congested, the Push message will be delivered unsuccessfully.
2. The SMSC schedules the short messages in a store and forward mode, and the PPG needs to segment the Push message of more than 140 bytes, thus it will take a relatively long time interval for the multiple segmented Push messages to be delivered to the mobile station, which possibly results in the mobile station unsuccessfully recombining the multiple short messages because of time-out.
3. The Push service has a higher failure rate, which will reduce a subscriber's experience of WAP Push service.
4. The Push service has a longer time delay, which will also reduce a subscriber's experience of WAP Push service.